8pm Ross Hammond w/Darren Johnston-trumpet, and Devin Hoff-bass
9pm No Sugar: George Cremaschi (bass/electronics) & Liz Allbee (trumpet/electronics)
Ross has shared billing with Pharoah Sanders, John Tchcai, Ken Vandermark, Peter Brotzman, Pothole, Kenny Werner and Charlie Hunter. He is a frequent collaborator with tabla player/percussionist Alex
Jenkins, free jazz hornman Tony Passarell, “Grad-student” rockers The Inversions, Sacramento saxophone legend Steve Gundhi, Bay Area drummer Sameer Gupta and David Boyce of the Broun Fellinis.
Originally from Ontario, Canada, composer and trumpeter Darren Johnston moved to San Francisco, CA in 1997, where he has been living ever since. As a performer, Johnston has performed, and/or recorded with
such innovative musicians and composers as guitarist Fred Frith, clarinetist Don Byron, bassist Marcus Shelby, bassist Herbie Lewis, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and others. He was
recently listed last June by Downbeat Magazine as one of 25 Trumpeters of the Future.
Johnston has received commissions to write for dance, most notably for the San Francisco based companies Robert Moses’s Kin, and Amy Seiwert’s im’ij-re, but primarily he writes for his own various projects and those of others in which he participates, including two works in progress for the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.
Devin Hoff works the double bass, the bass guitar, and writes songs. He grew up in Colorado, where he did not learn to fish, hunt, ski, or camp, and he did not go to college. Since the early 1990’s he has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He is a member of The Nels Cline Singers, Good For Cows, Plays Monk, and the Devin Hoff Platform. In addition, he regularly works with other great musicians, such as Carla Bozulich, Ben Goldberg, Odessa Chen,
John Dieterich, Jewlia Eisenberg, Howard Wiley, Steven Bernstein, Carla Kihlstedt, Tony Malaby, Julian Lage, Ron Miles, Mary Halvorson, Jessica Pavone, and many others.
Devin has played on hundreds of recordings and thousands of shows throughout the world. In his spare time he collects (and reads) anarchist books, threatens to become a writer, and volunteers with worthy independent organizations such as the Prisoners Literature Project, the Kate Sharpley Library, and AK Press. He is not now, nor has he ever been, a retired hockey player.
Liz Allbee is a voracious musician whose work spans many genres, including new music, improvisation, electronic composition, Asian folk and pop, noise, minimalist, free jazz and experimental rock. She has
played with a wide array of musicians, including Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Cecil Taylor, Hans Grusel, Birgit Uhler, Alberto Braida, Fabrizio Spera, Gino Robair, Yugen Noh Theater, SFSound, and
with members of Caroliner, Sun City Girls, and Rova. She lives in Oakland, CA.
George Cremaschi was born in New York City to Argentinian immigrant parents. Cremaschi™s diverse influences include: study-ing jazz at the Jazzmobile, in Harlem, compostion at the Grennwich House Music
School, in Greenwich Village; and Brazilian samba at Cuando, in the Lower East Side. Recent years have seen many performances and collaborations with such renowned musicians as: Marshall Allen, Vinney Golia, Eugene Chadbourne, Louis Moholo, Miya Masaoka, Glenn Spearman, Babatunde Olatunji, and Nicolas Collins.